The founder and pastor of one of the largest megachurches in the US, Robert Morris, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma in the 1980s.
Morris, 64, pleaded guilty on Thursday in Osage county district court on five criminal counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years in custody, but as part of a plea deal will serve only six months in county jail.
He will register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution.
The disgraced pastor founded Gateway church in Southlake, Texas. He grew it into one of the top 10 largest megachurches in the US, with more than 25,000 visitors weekly.
Cindy Clemishire, 55, the woman who publicly identified herself as the victim of Morris’s sexual abuse, was present in the courtroom as he pleaded guilty. In a prepared statement she told him: “There is no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child. We were never in an ‘inappropriate relationship.’ I was not a ‘young lady’ but a child. You committed a crime against me.”
Her sister Karen Black also read a statement, saying: “You pretended to be holy, preaching from big pulpits. As you hid behind your facade, we’ve known you are nothing but a predator.”
Morris resigned from the church last year after Clemishire went public. She had spent years trying to hold her abuser accountable.
The molestation began in 1982 when Morris, then 21, was a travelling evangelist. He stayed with Clemishire’s family in their home, where he invited the child into his room.
The abuse continued for the following four years.
A leaked transcript of a phone call revealed that in 2005 Morris tried to bribe Clemishire into silence, telling her to “put a price on it”.
Morris’s conviction marks a remarkable fall for the pastor. At his peak he authored several bestselling books and his sermons were broadcast around the world.
He also became a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump. He joined the White House spiritual advisory committee during the first Trump presidency and was part of a campaign to mobilize evangelical voters for him in last year’s presidential campaign.
Trump also visited Gateway church in 2020 where he praised Morris and his senior team as “great people with a great reputation”.
